Sunday, September 30, 2007

Whether biofuels will ever be competitive with fossil fuels remains to be seen. That will depend on a mixture of economics and politics. But the political rush to back ethanol, just because it is green and people have heard of it, is a mistake. Let a thousand flowers bloom, and see which one wins Dr Venter's Grand Prix.

Hundreds of families living in housing subsidized by Fairfax County taxpayers exceed income caps designed to ensure that only the neediest receive assistance, a review of county records shows.

In the most extreme cases, Fairfax is underwriting rents for families making well into six figures: One household getting help makes more than $216,000 a year; another, $184,000. Dozens of others -- making $60,000, $70,000, $90,000 -- exceed eligibility caps. And they do so with the tacit approval of county housing administrators, who do little to encourage occupants to move on when their fortunes improve.

Jonathan Samet of Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health said similar findings had been documented in the higher rate of cancer among Hispanic women in the southwestern United States who tended to hand roll cigarettes.

"There is, perhaps, an indication that we should be concerned if rising prices for manufactured cigarettes would lead to substitutions," Samet said.

Q: What is the TRBA's (Tennessee Road Builders Association) stance on transportation funding?

A: We would be supportive of increasing transportation user fees that would be dedicated to transportation programs. What are those? It would be a fuel tax increase; it would be a motor vehicle increase on renewals. You could index the fuel tax to inflation; you could add a sales tax to the fuel. We would be supportive of those types of measures and make sure they are dedicated to transportation. TDOT has clearly identified that the need is out there and has grown. They identified they need $5.5 billion over five years.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

A very significant portion of those who allow their fellow taxpayers to pay for their children's school lunches and health insurance, certainly over half, could easily re-arrange their family budget priorities to cover these expenses.

Yet many will celebrate and fight for the "right" of parents to neglect their children by self-righteously condemning those who oppose SCHIP in any form.

Having devastated the private companies they prey on, the last best hope for union bosses is government. Governments are a perfect vehicle for monopoly power so cherished by unions. If allowed, they will run our governments into the ground for their own "benefit" just as surely as they have devastated the domestic auto producers.

The problem with unions is not all that dissimilar to that posed by entrenched management: Once they win comfortable contracts, they often become impediments to the kind of innovation and flexibility essential to success in today's economy. So in the name of "job security," they undermine a company's — or a nation's — competitiveness. The result, over time, is less job security for everyone, especially the union workforce. There's no better example of this than GM, where the UAW now represents about 74,000 hourly workers, compared to 246,000 in 1994. Some security.

"Soaring food prices, driven in part by demand for ethanol made from corn, have helped slash the amount of food aid the government buys to its lowest level in a decade, possibly resulting in more hungry people around the world this year."

Dramatically lower unionization rates (now below 8% in the private sector) has caused this sort of desperation among those who depend on union money for political power. Let the bullying of government employees begin.

Union organizing just got easier for government employees in Massachusetts. Governor Deval Patrick signed a bill yesterday that allows employees to organize through "card check" drives, rather than secret ballots.

Union officials applauded the measure, which had been vetoed by Governor Mitt Romney last year and denounced by some business leaders, who said workers would be intimidated into voting in favor of unionizing. Similar legislation in Congress is backed by Senator Edward M. Kennedy and others, but has failed to gain Senate approval.

TOKYO - Tiny Shirogane post office in a quiet Tokyo neighborhood, with just three clerks and one ATM, might seem far removed from the world of global finance.But when Japan Post is privatized on Monday, the Shirogane office will become part of the world's biggest commercial bank — with assets of $3.03 trillion — in a move intended to inject competition into Japan's banking sector.

"Our customers will soon experience the merits of privatization," Yoshifumi Nishikawa, president of Japan Post, said Friday. "They will see a better quality of services, or new products — in short, more convenience."

Friday, September 28, 2007

Its like 2002 in Tennessee when Gov. Don Sundquist and Speaker Naifeh and Senator Bob Rochelle REALLY wanted their State Income tax. Now Michigan is going thru the same process only its not over a State income tax (they already have one), its over a hike in the State income tax.

Messages went to about 35,000 state workers, telling them they were being placed on a temporary layoff beginning at 12:01 a.m. Monday and not to go to work unless otherwise notified.

About 18,000 state employees will remain on the job, including 12,000 prison employees, said Liz Boyd, a spokeswoman for Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

"We will have limited state police," Boyd added.

A shutdown would mean most government operations would cease, including food safety and gas pump inspections, liquor deliveries, lottery ticket sales, the issuance of driver's licenses, and construction on state roads, Granholm said Friday.

A Wayne County judge, however, on Friday gave the three Detroit casinos permission to stay open even if the state is unable to oversee them during a shutdown. The casinos contribute $1 million a day to state public schools and Detroit public safety, a casino spokesman said.

John Berthoud, President of the National Taxpayer's Union passed away suddenly and unexpectedly yesterday at the young age of 47. Here is more info on this quiet, dedicated man. He will be missed by every American Taxpayer.

A Flash back to Commissioner Farr, who is intent on trolling the State borders, telling Rep. Bell that "if you don't like that, its neither here nor there" when Rep. Bell was trying to exempt home use of propane from sales tax. Rep. Crider took exception to what he felt was disrespect towards Rep. Bell and things generally went down hill

Economists say the slowdown has come about because more people are turning to generics and because generic versions of some of the most common drugs have recently come on the market.

Another factor could be the so-called Wal-Mart effect. Last fall, Wal-Mart began offering many generic prescriptions at $4 a month. Target quickly announced a similar plan, and Kmart expanded its program, which offers a 90-day supply of generic drugs for $15. Other retailers have followed with their variations. Publix, a grocery store chain with 684 pharmacies in five states in the Southeast, announced last month that it would not charge for prescriptions for seven commonly used antibiotics.

The Shelby County Election Commission would need an opinion from the Memphis city attorney on how to handle the situation. The city attorney said he was unsure if the claim would hold up, since the clause in the charter that addresses late taxes is an "editors note," and not a code.

While the Gov threatens to shut down the State Govt trying to get her $1.75 Billion Tax Hike passed, her friend and campaign contributor rip off the taxpayers by leasing a building for three times what it could be built for and they don't even need the new building in the first place. A damning TV investigative report.

I am quite sure they will be exploring "other" options like tolls and going into debt. Politicians always seem to treat taxpayers as just a temporary obstacle to their ultimate ambitions. If taxpayers don't want a gas tax hike maybe someone should look at he spending side of the balance sheet.

Good article today in WSJ about all those "wonderful" national service plans that never target people my age because we vote and wouldn't stand for such silliness.

The young are no threat to the pols because they don't vote. I will soon have you young people providing me a retirement income, prescription drugs, and full medical care......if these self righteous pols have their way I may also have an army of young servants to drive me to Wal-Mart to pick up my free generic drugs.

Indeed, the moral case for conscripting the elderly for civilian service is arguably stronger than that for drafting the young. Many elderly people are healthy enough to perform nonstrenuous forms of "national service." Unlike the young, the elderly usually won't have to postpone careers, marriage and educational opportunities to fulfill their forced-labor obligations. Moreover, the elderly, to a far greater extent than the young, are beneficiaries of massive government redistributive programs, such as Social Security and Medicare--programs that transfer enormous amounts of wealth from other age groups to themselves. Nonelderly poor people who receive welfare benefits are required to work (or at least be looking for work) under the 1996 welfare reform law; it stands to reason that the elderly (most of whom are far from poor) can be required to work for the vastly larger government benefits that they receive.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Memphis politicians "creating" jobs by giving away the taxpayer's money to a few select corporate fat cats and keeping tax rates high for everyone else. Memphis has the highest property tax rates in the State.

I can predict with almost complete certainty that long after the politicians get their photo-op many of these jobs will NEVER be "created."

LinkThe Memphis and Shelby County Industrial Development Board will hear payment-in-lieu-of-tax requests from two companies with a total of 80 new jobs.

Many of these "business leaders" referred to in this article undoubtedly send their children to private schools as did Bredesen.

What they will smugly and cynically offer are tired "solutions" that have been tried over and over again. The one reform they will NOT offer is giving parents the same power of choice they had to avoid a public school system they decided was not the right choice for their children.

NASHVILLE — Almost 4,000 applicants are seeking a total of $172 million from a $20 million "community enhancement grant" fund set up by the state Legislature earlier this year, according to a tally Monday by Secretary of State Riley Darnell's office.

"Obviously, most people are going to be left short and they probably are not going to be happy," said Darnell. "But the Legislature, in its infinite wisdom, has spoken."

Lawmakers decided earlier this year to include $20 million in the state budget for distribution to charitable causes, granting Darnell the discretion to decide who gets the money.

The move was a compromise. Some lawmakers wanted to allow each of the 99 House members to earmark $100,000 in grants to his or her district while allowing each of the 33 senators to allocate $300,000. Others criticized such lawmaker-dictated grants as "pork barrel."

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — In an effort to bring prostitutes into the legal economy, officials said Monday that Hungary will allow sex workers to apply for an entrepreneur's permit — a move that could generate government revenues from an industry worth an estimated $1 billion annually.

All those who opposed the law making open records and open meetings laws stronger knew that if they could stall the proposed law and get the effort diverted into a "study committee" it would die. Apparently their strategy has worked. As usual, most of the opposition comes from taxpayer funded associations of government officials.

Back in May when I had lunch with Karl Dean I asked him why he sent his children to non-public schools. I had hoped the question would begin a thoughtful discussion with respect to fundamental education reform.His answer, that there was a family tradition on his wife's side, was fundamentally dishonest. A family tradition might explain why one would choose a particular school once the decision is made to opt out of the public school system.But at $20,000 a pop for tuition, one doesn't choose a school in order to maintain some family tradition when an equivalent option is available for free.Karl Dean did not believe there was an equivalent option.He, like most parents who send their kids to private schools, believed that their school was better.The Deans knew that the student body at the private school would be different than the student body at a public school. The family incomes would be higher.The educational backgrounds of the parents would be more impressive. He, like all consumers of private education, was buying a school and the whole network.

The Streamlined Sales Tax is a textbook example of government institutional self-promotion and self-preservation completely unrelated to wishes of citizens and taxpayers. The ONLY people pushing the SST are government bureaucrats seeking self-preservation and self-promotion. I am too skeptical to accept this report on face value but its cause for some small amount of optimism.

However, several large states are reluctant to join the sales tax project because they feel changing their laws would be a burden on their businesses and cause some local jurisdictions to lose revenue.

Here's why:

The project's rules require all delivered merchandise to be taxed according to where it is delivered, not where the store is located.

Kansas changed its sales tax law in 2003 to comply, resulting in complaints by small businesses that it created an expensive burden on them to calculate the amount of sales tax on each delivery sale.

The same concern has prevented other states, including Missouri, from joining the effort.

Ohio, Texas and many other large states still use a store's location to determine the sales tax on delivered goods. Switching to a delivery rate, they contended, would hurt localities with businesses that do a lot of deliveries.

Michigan still does not have a budget and a Government shutdown is possible. The Democratic Governor and House are fighting with the Republican Senate. The Gov has been unable to get 56 votes in the Republican controlled Senate necessary to raise income tax rates. The Republicans have proposed major spending cuts but the House will probably not go along. All the normal players are taking up all the normal positions. The very strong Michigan labor unions are very consistently pushing for higher taxes and bigger govt. All the while the Michigan economy goes in the toilet and State unemployment is at its highest rate in many years. A tax increase will simply accelerate the decline of the Michigan economy.

What is unusual is how strongly each side is holding on to their positions. Should be a very interesting next few days.

Then there is the perception that the government is not an interesting place to work. In a survey conducted by the Gallup Organization and the nonprofit Council for Excellence in Government last year, the majority of Gen Y respondents said the private sector does a better job of providing innovative and creative workplaces, does a better job of hiring and offers higher salaries.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

The county cannot spend taxpayer money on any advertising designed to influence a vote, but can use advertising only to educate residents.[...]

Campbell said that partnering is especially important to the success of the project. The school system can use public funds and employees to educate, as well as seek private funding to advocate for the tax, he said.

[...]

The association also recommended that the commissioners and community leaders not get sidetracked by debating the issue.

"If someone gives false information, then correct them and give them factual information," Woods said. "Go out there and sell what you want to use the money for."

Woods said the county will run advertisements - probably in local newspapers - but an advertising schedule and marketing budget haven't been formulated.

"If we communicate the need, and the citizens know the need, we have to be very precise and communicate to the citizens that we need their help to accomplish this," he said.

There are many different people who are, or who may become, candidates for president in the Republican primaries starting in January 2008. Based all that you know or have heard up to now about the people listed below, for which one person would you be most likely to vote? (Those who would vote in Republican primary or caucus)

Sept. 2007

Aug. 2007

Jul. 2007

Fred Thompson

32%

27%

29%

Rudy Giuliani

28%

30%

28%

John McCain

11%

14%

17%

Mitt Romney

9%

11%

9%

Newt Gingrich

7%

8%

6%

Ron Paul

3%

3%

1%

Mike Huckabee

3%

2%

1%

Duncan Hunter

2%

--

2%

Sam Brownback

2%

1%

2%

Tom Tancredo

1%

2%

3%

Chuck Hagel

--

1%

1%

Tommy Thompson

n.a.

1%

1%

Source: Harris InteractiveMethodology: Online interviews with 2,372 American adults, conducted from Sept. 6 to Sept. 14, 2007. No margin of error was provided.

Your government can help you and your family - and we will. We can encourage students to exercise, as the new law now requires at least 90 minutes a week. We can teach your children about healthy living, as Tennessee leads the nation with the first fully funded Coordinated School Health program. Schools around the state are now teaching our children about nutrition and exercise as part of their course of study. Teachers are finding ways to incorporate exercise into their lessons, for example by including physical movements in reading lessons. We can build parks, recreational facilities, bike routes, walking trails and greenways.

But ultimately Tennesseans will decide how fat and diseased or how fit and healthy we will be.

If you came to this site looking for information on Federal grants, you have come to the right place. This site deals with all types of assistance, not just financial aid. Therefore, this site uses "Assistance Program" as a generic term rather than speak specifically of a grant, loan, or other sort of program.

Good points...basically Stuart is saying that we all have the tendency toward self-justification but "intellectuals" have more tools in their arsenal to accomplish the task. Add the "moral imperative" that we all feel about our most cherished ideals and advocacy becomes a very sticky wicket. The only real salvation for all of us is complete transparency and openness so we are forced to admit mistakes in the face of overwhelming evidence.

Democracy and Free Market Capitalism work not because they magically transform the human intellect or psyche but because they expose our mistakes and biases quicker than other societal structures.

One of the great intellectual challenges is to be consistent in the way that you approach evidence. What most people do, however, is hold one side of a debate to a much higher standard of proof than the other. That is, if Side A and Side B are fighting about something, then Side A will trumpet to the heavens every study and report and news story and anecdote and sheer speculation that supports Side A, whereas even the most meticulous study supporting Side B will be nitpicked to death and then ignored.

Consistent with what Taber and Lodge found, I think this may be most often true of professors and intellectuals -- they're smart enough to come up with a post hoc rationalization for any prior belief, they love to nitpick any contrary evidence, and they can walk away from any debate more convinced than ever that they are right, regardless of the evidence or arguments brought to bear on the other side.

Friday, September 21, 2007

Michael Silence has the scoop. "Revenue Agents" will assume that anyone who is a smoker and crosses the State line is a potential criminal. We need more details on this.....are the Dept of Revenue agents actually crossing State lines? Will they use long range telescopes? How will they monitor out of State purchases? If they haven't already my guess is that we will soon have a hotline to report offending smokers.

Another thought, this may be the start of a new push to enforce the USE tax on items purchased outside TN A roadblock on I-65 at the Kentucky line would teach the citizens a thing or two. Commissioner Farr could get some of those big mirrored sunglasses and a sheriff's hat and slowly walk up to the cars and say things like, "Howdy Mame, I am afraid I smell me some out of State smoke."

"If Revenue agents believe that an individual is transporting more than two cartons of cigarettes into Tennessee, the vehicle carrying the cigarettes will be stopped and searched," Commissioner Farr said. "If more than two cartons are found, the cigarettes will be seized and agents have the discretion to make arrests and seize the vehicle."

Thursday, September 20, 2007

A recent report highlighted some interesting information on both earmarks and campaign contributions. Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), who is the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, directed $114.5 million in earmarks to 26 private entities. All 26 of the entities contributed to Rep. Murtha's campaign totaling $413,250 since the beginning of 2005 with $100,750 of these contributions coming in the 2 weeks before the March 16th deadline to file earmark requests.

Rep. Norm Dicks (D-WA) is also on the Defense subcommittee and also received campaign contributions from every private entity he directed an earmark to and Rep. Bud Cramer (D-AL) received campaign contributions from 15 of the 16 private entities he directed earmarks to.

On the Republican side of the Appropriations committee, Rep. Bill Young (FL) who is the ranking member on the Defense Subcommittee received campaign contributions from 28 of the 30 groups he directed earmarks to and Rep. David Hobson (OH) received campaign contributions from 11 of the 14 private entities he directed earmarks to.